I started Karen Farley Skincare back in 2005, but the story really begins at least a decade earlier, when I founded Lifestyle magazine — one of New Zealand's leading women's health and beauty publications.
For ten years I worked with the beauty industry, regularly receiving products from the world's top skincare brands to review.
Over the years I found I became sensitive to the strong fragrances in the various products, which would make me feel nauseous.
My interest was in natural health and beauty and I researched ingredients in personal and household products and became an avid label reader.
When reviewing products, I found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the long ingredient lists packed with synthetic compounds, including parabens — even on many so-called ‘natural’ products — with my interest in reducing the toxic load for myself and my readers.
In the end, I walked away from the magazine world to research natural skincare ingredients and to create natural skincare that I could stand by, and actually use myself.
Reaching even further back in time, I grew up in the English countryside, with a deep connection to nature that has never left me. That upbringing shaped everything about how I think about skincare — keep it simple, keep it as natural as possible, and cause the least harm possible to our bodies and our planet.
That philosophy is still my guiding star today.
I believe we have been given everything we need to live a long and healthy life — to live as many days on this beautiful earth as possible.
In the earth's plants, flowers, and roots lies the power not just to survive, but to truly thrive.
There's nothing more exciting than discovering a rare bloom, or pausing to look closer at a common, overlooked one — and finding within it something extraordinary.
That is what drives us. Harnessing the quiet power of these plants so you can look and feel beautiful — naturally.
I'm lucky enough to be joined now by my daughter Emma, who shares my passion for natural health and beauty.
If you call us with a question or an order, it will almost certainly be one of us who picks up the phone.
Thank you for being here.
- Karen